I downloaded a program from adobe it was 2.2 gb and my account was throttled back 75% I also downloaded the day before Americas army which was 2gb and it was again throttled back making it impossible to watch my sky go.... one movie on sky go is between 1.1 and 2gb so you are going to get throttled back even if you watch a movie. I’m going to close my account and go with plus net who do not have this stupid rule I don’t use p2p and am not a prolific downloader but hey where is the common sense here. I have 2 accounts that I pay for one is my sons which helps him with his business and the other is mine I pay about £150 to 200 a month so it’s their loss. Shame on you Virgin I don’t think you will be very popular 6 months from now when all catch on that you are throttling everyone’s account back... Vince

This new more ruthless policy was introduced 2 weeks ago at the end of March 2013

Your link isn't working. This is the one to Virgins Thresholds Traffic Management Policy It seems to have better thresholds than you quote and certainly more than enough for the two examples you gave. Or am I missing something?

You don't say which package you are on which might help us understand the problem.

If you go with PlusNet you will be getting your broadband via the phone line and although they say they won't throttle you, you may well find that speeds will suffer at busy times and when other people are doing the same as you and downloading huge files.

What was the Adobe program - even Photoshop is only around 900mb.

You say you aren't a prolific downloader but you have quoted 2 large ones in your post and your SkyGo usage also counts as downloading. I thought SkyGo was for Sky TV subscribers or as a Pay per View to non subscribers.

Few things here:
Sorry about the link its www.virgimedia.com/traffic
my connection is 20mb m/l package dont pay for tv as I have sky box.

People who think but don’t know are the worst kind I pay for sky go with my sky package so I can watch the f1 channel and watch the early hours racing in bed without having to fork out for an extra box as my son has an extra box already in his room...so just for the person that doesn’t know what sky go is its so that you can watch sky when you are not in front of your box whether that be 30 feet or 30 miles is just geography.

Also thanks for the replies. I would use sky BB but it’s a bt line which is too far from exchange so only 1.5 mb connections. PlusNet have told me they now do an optic fibre in my area with maximum speed of 80mb so that’s fine for me I will use them if they can deliver, seems true as when I put my post code in it comes up with the same information.

Oh and yes you are missing something and that is one download of 900mb and the download of the game Americas Army about 2.5gb is not excessive in my opinion I don’t p2p and download 100s of gb of data on bent movies etc etc. If I wanted to purchase adobe ps extended and download a few other things that I paid for I don’t expect to be capped...Basically what virgin is doing is stifling e commerce which I have put in writing to Oftel and media ombudsman. and yes thanks for that I will send a note to watchdog. Incidentally I pay for two lines into the house and also pay for another virgin account to help with my other sons business so they will be losing a lot of spondoolies form me every month.

Vinny
im a long time virgin customer too back in the days when they were called "Blueyonder"
I have no problems and trust me i download an awful lot so im surprised to read your comment that your been throttled after downloading a 2gb file
Virgin do "traffic manage" like every other company they are no different,usually 4pm - 10pm
It could be you only have a small 20mb package,i have a 60mb one and i did read somewhere they are more lenient with higher end users,your allowed more download before its throttled

I think you will find that PlusNet belongs to BT so if they are offering Fibre Optic in your area its because its using the BT fibre Optic network. All broadband providers use the BT phone network, and even Virgin use it in non cabled areas to provide their Broadband ADSL service.

Like mart7 I have been with Virgin/NTL/Cable&Wireless/Videotron for many, many years and have never had any problems either with Dial Up in the old days, or with the Broadband service.

Twenty per cent of Virgin Media's total network resources are consumed by one per cent of its users. That's the reason for the bandwidth cap, but it should only affect very heavy users.

It's worth pointing out that it isn't the downstream traffic that's the problem - Virgin will have more than enough bandwidth to cope with that. The problem is the upstream traffic - mainly the data that gets sent upstream by P2P users. As I'm sure you realise, when you're downloading anything your computer has to constantly send data packets upstream to acknowledge receipt of the incoming data. With very big files this upstream data can saturate the network and consequently affect the file transfer speed - your download slows.

Virgin treats upstream and downstream traffic separately when it comes to imposing caps, so in theory you shouldn't be affected if most of your traffic is downstream. Big demand for TV shows and movies on a 20Mb connection will inevitably saturate the upstream. Upstream caps on your 20Mb connection operate between 3:0 pm and 8:00 pm and downstream caps between 5:00 pm and 10:00 pm. This applies seven days a week. If you are subjected to capping you are automatically released from traffic management after 5 hours.

One way to avoid the problem is to do any heavy downloads or uploads while you sleep. Set them going at say, 10:30 and leave them to run overnight.

Well it seems that the best thing to do is watch movies when I’m asleep...don’t care how you mitigate it it’s pathetic and wrong I will not be manipulated into buying a larger package as u still get capped anyway, and I disagree with the majority as its mitigating the reasons instead of fighting for what should be your right to watch whatever on TV at whatever time and if you decide to download a sky go movie to watch later then you should be able to or buy acronis server backup which I was going to do today but my son wants to watch Spiderman in his room on sky go with his mates.. As I said its stifling ecommerce and they cannot see it.